Anime / Macross Zero

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Macross Zero is a five-episode OVA released from 2002-2004, set as a Prequel to the popular Macross series. The story takes place in the year 2008, nine years after an alien ship crash-landed in the south Pacific, in the final days of the Unification Wars mentioned earlier in the series. It involves Shin Kudou, a Japanese-American UN soldier who crash lands on a small island after a fateful encounter with one of the first of the series' transforming Humongous Mecha.

On the island, he meets Sara Nome, a priestess of the island's religion, and Mao Nome, Sara's Genki Girl little sister. Thanks to Shin, the island is drawn into the war for the unification of Earth, as well as the fight to posses the various pieces of a strange alien corpse called a "Birdman"/"Bird Human" which figures into the island's religion and may cause untold destruction if allowed to be put back together again.

This show provides examples of:

Ambiguous Robots: It is really hard to tell just where the machinery ends and living technology begins with the bird-human.

Artistic License – Geography: The fact that the island, implied to be somewhere in the South Pacific, is named "Mayan" Island has confused a lot of people, since the Maya lived in Central America. It seems the name is a coincidence, as there is little similarity between the islander's culture and that of any Central American culture.

Funny Foreigner: In the first episode, when Shin wakes up on the island with no idea where he is, he grabs a carved stick to use as a weapon, and later threatens the natives with it. He cannot figure out why onlookers are giggling so much while he's doing this, and one old man amusedly says "You really shouldn't be pointing that thing at another man, son." Later, when the romantic implications of the carved sticks are explained to him, he bursts out laughing at how stupid he must have looked, threatening the island's religious leader with the cultural equivalent of a love letter.

Gainax Ending: Sara, inside the Bird Human, tanks the explosion that would render Maya Island uninhabitable by Folding into space with the exploding nukes. Shin's damaged VF-0, which is glowing blue for some reason, almost sinks into the sea, but surfaces just in time to... follow Sara into foldspace? Maybe? Did the Bird Human grab it using its magic telekinesis? We don't know. It's strange.

Idol Singer: Averted. In a notable departure for the series, Sara and Mao are singing shrine maidens rather than idol singers.

Innocent Fanservice Girl: Sara, who Shin walks in on performing some kind of ceremony in the nude. A flashback shows Sara as a younger girl receiving religious instruction from her father, wearing a traditional island outfit which apparently does not include a top.

Just Plane Wrong: VF-0s are powered by Turbofans (that is, NORMAL JET ENGINES), yet are able to 'dive' underwater. But the VF-0 also has a few rocket motors, shutters for the engine intakes, and massive capacitors. It's noted that spending at least a couple minutes underwater isn't going to harm it (the thing is meant to be space-worthy, so one would expect it to be airtight).

Nuclear Weapons: But actually not a nuke this time, but a fuel-air explosive. Actual nukes are launched in the final battle, and stopping them from annihilating all life on the island leads to a couple of Heroic Sacrifices.

Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Played straight. Macross Zero continues the tradition of using the ambiguous term "Reaction Weaponry" for things that are almost-but-not-quite nukes.

Point Defenseless: The carrier Asuka II's battle group. It's just more dramatically tense for the battroids to be able to attack rather than be destroyed before they even get there by an AEGIS system (or whatever overtechnology equivalent).

Precursor Worship: it's suggested that the natives of Mayan Island in the Pacific worship the Protoculture, now extinct, as divine beings. They were also responsible for the creation of the human race.

The animation in the opening scene with F-14 Tomcats launching from an aircraft carrier at the crack of dawn is a homage to the opening scene of Top Gun, one of Kawamori's favorite movies.

Spell My Name with an "S": There is some minor disagreement over whether the aliens should be referred to as "Birdmen" or "Bird Humans."

It probably stems from Pronoun Trouble, as in the islander legends the Bird Human sacrificed its wings and became the wife of the first human being, symbolizing the way human evolution was guided by alien technology.

Story-Breaker Power: The Bird Human. It levitates a half a dozen naval warships, including an entire aircraft carrier, merely as a side effect of being turned on. It also has a Wave Motion Gun that can turn said warships inside-out in an instant, and has a barrier that can completely block the combined effects of four tactical nuclear warheads (although this obviously strained it).

Transforming Mecha: Series staple, although the jet form is emphasized much more than usual.

You Monster!: How Nora describes the UN military to Shin, held captive, when she shows him the scar she got from a knife wound made by rogue UN troops. To be fair, we don't know if there were UN troops with Shin's unit who went rogue and committed war crimes. Nora tells this to Sara when she believes the UN Air Force could have bombed the island. On the other hand, Nora could be trying to shift blame from the Anti-UN force doing the exact same thing earlier on.

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